OUR OPINION: Time to find new ways to address opioid addiction

Saturday

Aug 6, 2016 at 12:01 AMAug 11, 2016 at 4:26 PM

More people are killing themselves this year with opioids – prescription pills, heroin and fentanyl, which began life as an operating-room anesthetic. And even more people would be dead except for Narcan, which is being used to revive people whose bodies are shutting down because of an opioids.

The increase in deaths year to year is discouraging; the increase over the last several years is exponential. The efforts of government and medicine have been ineffective in slowing this opioid epidemic. That doesn't mean we give up and accept these deaths as inevitable. It means that it is time to explore different responses, new approaches and better, prolonged treatment.

Opioids are chemical compounds, natural or synthetic, that act on receptors in the brain, spinal cord and digestive tract. Their medical purpose is to relieve pain. The state Department of Public Health reports nearly 1,000 people in Massachusetts died from opioids in the first six months of this year. The exact number was 986, up 25 percent from last year. In 2012, there were 698 opioid deaths in the state. There were 1,531 last year, including 44 in Brockton and 38 in Quincy. Barring major change, there will be 2,000 this year.

We have pretty much proven by now that “just say no” doesn't work for many people. For those people, trying something new is attractive, sometime that promises escape from life's woes is compelling. The problem is that opioids are terribly addictive, mentally and physically.

Many people who overdose on opioids started by taking prescriptions medications. Our Legislature, and the federal government, have intervened this year by limiting prescriptions and now allowing people to partially fill prescriptions. There are still "pain clinics" in parts of the country that write scripts for hundreds of pills at a time, and pharmaceutical companies are only grudgingly agreeing to stop pushing their pills as cure-alls for every ache or stressful event. These are areas the need to be addressed further.

A spike in overdose deaths in a past two years has been attributed to the introduction of huge quantities of fentanyl into the market. Much of if comes from Mexico, mixed into heroin to increase the potency. The problem is that fentanyl can kill you in minutes. And now China is getting into the market. U.S. officials have seized pill-making presses and the raw ingredients for making fentanyl being sent into this country from China. Interdicting these channels has become a priority.

As long as people want something, there will be a market. Treatment remains the best option for getting people off drugs and reducing the market. There has been a chronic shortage of treatment options in Massachusetts for people who want to end their drug use. Legislation passed this year addresses part of that need. A bill by state Sen. John Kennan of Quincy would have provided another important treatment option. Keenan's proposal would required private insurance companies to pay for up to 30 days of in-patient treatment. We strongly urge Keenan to reintroduce his bill in the next session and to push again for is passage.

There are people who say, jokingly or not, that drug addicts should be left to die on the street. We hope that don't mean it. Drugs, and particularly opioids, are a danger that we must address. They are ways to continue that effort, and we must find them and pursue them.

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